The original Far Cry is remade for the Xbox 360 and PS3, but after 10 years of sequels is its tropical paradise worth revisiting?

Far Cry is a very peculiar series of video games. Not in terms of its content, which often errs on the safe side of most first person shooter staples, but in the fact that none of its various sequels have anything to do with each other. Apart from being open world shooters there’s no connection in terms of story, characters, or even specific gameplay mechanics. Which is not a problem in itself but it does mean that going back to the original holds considerably less appeal than for most other franchises.

As far as Ubisoft is concerned this is the first time that the original game has ever appeared on consoles, but that’s only true up to a point. Far Cry Instincts on the Xbox and Xbox 360 was somewhat abridged, and considerably more linear, but it was clearly still the same game, with the same plot. We’d also mention Far Cry Vengeance on the Wii, but to be honest it’d probably be best if all concerned forgot about that.

The reason that Ubisoft has decided to create another, more exacting console version is that they’re also releasing Far Cry: The Wild Expedition this month, a compilation that contains all the mainline games and which seems to be writing Instincts, and its sequel Evolution, out of the history books. That’s fine and everything, but Far Cry was always less than perfect and the 10 years since its original release have not been particularly kind.

Far Cry was the first game by German developer Crytek, who never worked on any of the subsequent games and are now better known for the Crysis series and Xbox One launch title Ryse. The first Far Cry has much in common with Crysis, in terms of its open world environment, its unappealing storyline, and its unfocused gameplay.

The plot involves generic video game protagonist Jack Carver, who ends up on a mysterious South Pacific island filled with mercenaries. We shouldn’t spoil the plot twist by revealing why the island is teeming with heavily-armed soldiers but suffice it to say it makes a similar mistake to the first Crysis, by abandoning the more interesting stealth-based combat of the opening hours.

Far Cry Classic (PS3) – state-of-the-art never lasts forever

Much was made of the complexity of the artificial intelligence in the original game, but in practice it rarely worked as advertised. Enemies are either hyper aware crack shots or deaf, dumb, and stupid even when you’re fumbling around right in front of them. Watching them retreat and call in reinforcements was quite a novelty at the time and although they never do so with any consistency it’s still relatively unusual now.

The gunplay, again not something that was particularly good in the first place, is fairly horrible now too, with sluggish controls that make it feel like you’re battling through treacle not tropical foliage. Both elements have been tightened up somewhat for this remake, but not nearly enough to cover up their obviously aged origins.

But as with every Crytek game the graphics were the real draw, although not only are they now 10 years out of date but this new version doesn’t do a particularly good job of recreating them anyway. There’s a lot of slowdown, and object and texture pop-in, that gives the distinct impression that the whole enterprise has been rushed through with relatively little care.

But then Far Cry is a game that’s very hard to care about. Especially as, in an attempt to get back to basics after the divisive Far Cry 2, the third game is essentially a remake in all but name. It’s also set on a desert island, where stealth is key, and you’re always made to feel outgunned and outnumbered. But Far Cry 3 is a vastly better game in terms of mechanics and graphics, not to mention story.

We can’t imagine that Ubisoft learnt anything new from making Far Cry Classic, or gained any fresh inspiration for the inevitable fourth game. Far Cry 3 is easily the best the series has ever been and any new game needs to continue the push to add more memorable characters, more gameplay variety, more enjoyable action, and better artificial intelligence. In short, all the things that the original had the most problems with.

In Short: Far Cry is a series that’s gone on to much better things since the flawed original, and revisiting it 10 years later almost feels like pointing and laughing at the afflicted.

Pros: It’s not a very good port of the original, but that any energy has been expended on making it at all is a surprise. The open world set-up is still relatively unusual.